Abstract

This paper investigates the combustion knock characteristics of diesel engines running on natural gas using pilot injection as means of initiating combustion. The diesel engines knock under normal operating conditions but the knock referred to in this paper is an objectionable one. In the dual-fuel combustion process we have the ignition stage followed by the combustion stage. There are three types of knock: diesel knock, spark knock and knock due to secondary ignition delay of the primary fuel (erratic knock). Several factors have been noted to feature in defining knock characteristics of dual-fuel engines that include ignition delay, pilot quantity, engine load and speed, turbulence and gas flow rate